Cassini’s imaging instruments were able to see through the haze covering Titan in order to reveal its surface, and the nearly infrared wavelengths made imaging the moon possible under the right conditions.
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During this flyby, Cassini’s closest-approach altitude was about 6,200 miles or 10,000 kilometers.
Cassini is now on its second extended mission, the Cassini Solstice Mission, which will continue until September 2017. One of the science goals of the Cassini mission, according to NASA, was to study the interaction between Prometheus and the magnetosphere and ring system of Saturn.
Several places on the image show the moon’s surface at higher resolution than elsewhere. The view looks towards the potato moon’s anti-Saturn side. The potato moon roams around Saturn just interior to the narrow F ring, scientists said.
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft returned this image of Saturn on 16 May, 2004, taken with its imaging science subsystem narrow-angle camera.
A view of Prometheus, looking toward the moon’s trailing hemisphere, with north facing upwards. Cassini captured the image from a distance of about 23,000 miles (37,000 kilometers). The image was taken in visible light on on January 27, 2010.
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It is the largest moon of Saturn, and the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere. Cassini acquired images of these areas, called subframes, near closest approach and that’s the reason they have finer resolution, but cover smaller areas than data obtained when Cassini was farther away from Titan. It is the time when the spacecraft will plunge into blustery atmosphere of the ringed planet. The high flyby allowed VIMS to gather moderate-resolution views over wide areas (typically at a few kilometers per pixel).
